Acle Academy has made “minimal progress” since going into special measures, Ofsted says

Gerard Batty, executive headteacher of Acle Academy (Image: Archant)

However, Ofsted's first monitoring report for Acle Academy, which was published yesterday, was written before the proportion of pupils gaining A*-C in English and maths jumped from 49pc to 67pc this summer.

Gerard Batty, the school's executive headteacher, and chief executive of the Wensum Trust, which is due to take Acle over next month, said: 'I was asked by the Department for Education to come here with the trust in January to do what we could for Year 11, and that is exactly what we did.

'We threw the kitchen sink at Year 11 to make sure they had the best possible chance, and in doing that we could not do all the things we had to do lower down the school.'

He added: 'The thing that shows the school has moved on greatly is the Year 11 results, and now we are addressing the whole school, Year 7 to Year 11, and all the children are now feeling the impact of the changes, and we are delighted with how it's going.'

In her letter to Mr Batty, which followed a visit to the school on July 6-7, inspector Kim Pigram said leaders and managers were not taking effective action towards the removal of special measures.

It said: 'The upheavals in leadership since the last inspection have undermined the school's capacity to make necessary improvement. Leaders have been too stretched, and have been unable to work on the many urgent priorities. Progress against each of the areas for improvement identified in the last inspection is minimal.

'Leadership remains fragile because, although recent changes to the senior leadership have brought some improvement, these positions are not yet well established. Consequently, although there have been some more recent improvements, the school has not made rapid enough progress in the six months since the inspection.'

It said provision for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities had not improved, and that, while teaching is improving, 'too many weaknesses reported at the last inspection persist'.

The letter also said pupils had told the inspectors about the poor teaching they receive, especially when there is temporary cover teaching over a period of time, but staff work hard to try to improve education, and the dedication of the English team 'has not gone unnoticed by pupils'.

Mr Batty highlighted new senior staff, including head of school Helen Watts, deputy head Meena Wood, and assistant head Jimmy Day, and said their appointments had allowed him to reduce his time at the school from four days a week, to three.

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